Nowaki knows more than one way to warm Hiro-san's heart. This is where it all started... my very first FF... the origin of my FF writing addiction. Man, I still remember how nervous I was, fingering hovering above that "Submit" button. But you were all so kind. Thanks for reading.

This was the first fan fic I ever wrote and now I have a number of stories under Cerberus, more under Don't Preach and Daniel Lazerus. (I've become a bit addicted.) Anyway, this has been up for a while, but if you happen across it I still appreciate hearing your thoughts...

Sincerely,

Cerberus

Rated: T or PG-13

Contains: mild profanity, mild adult situations

Disclaimer: I do not own Jonjou Romantica or any of its characters

My Side of the Bed

Tonight it was Nowaki's turn to be left home alone.

The young doctor had been pulling so many double shifts his supervisor had finally ordered him off on a twenty-four hour leave. And while Hiroki had been looking forward to the rare full evening with his lover, not that he would ever admit it, with his luck, it only made sense then, that this is when the drama in his department had to erupt.

One of the senior professor had been caught having an affair with a high school student whose family was high up in the University's administration (not his senior faculty, fortunately, and the student in question had been female).

The University had forced the disgraced professor to resign immediately and an emergency faculty meeting called to resolve how to manage the disgraced professor's course load. During the course of the discussion, the scandal inevitably started a debate about morality and what sort of behavior was appropriate for the University's esteemed faculty.

Though he was loath to acknowledge it, all this talk about faculty sexual shenanigans stirred Hiroki up, making it difficult for him to keep his thoughts in the meeting and not wandering off to visions of Nowaki waiting for him at their apartment.

Perhaps he it was these thought or his "overly sensitive" sensitive nature in general, but Hiroki thought he caught more than one suspicious glance being cast in his direction during the conversation regarding "appropriate" modes of sexual conduct.

He distracted himself from his growing paranoia by observing, not without some perverse glee, how silent the usually jocular Miyagi was being through all of this.

This pleasure at his senior's discomfort might have seemed unkind, but Hiroki needed to get his amusement where he could. His week had already been brutal enough with midterm grading and student conferences... Now he had to endure this meeting as well and with all the fervor of the "incident," the discussion looked as though it could drag on for hours.

By the time he was finally able to stagger home, Hiroki was so tired he could hardly keep his shaking hands steady enough to get his key in the lock. In fact, he dropped them at least three times before succeeding in finally getting the door open.

It didn't help that his fingers were numb. There had been a sudden cold snap, surprising in what had been an otherwise clement early spring, and he did not have any gloves with him. The damn weather exacerbated his already perpetual state of chill.

Surely, however, Hiroki thought, listening to his teeth chatter, Nowaki will be waiting up with a cup of hot tea and those wonderfully warm eyes.

As he pushed the door open to the apartment, he grunted in disgust at himself.

Kamijou Hiroki, since when did you become such a ridiculous sap?

Still, after slipping out of his shoes and hinging up his things, he was surprised upon entering the main room of their home to find it empty, illuminated by a single dim lamp on one of the end-tables.

Where is that idiot?

Hiroki growled, covering his disappointment and suddenly irritated with his overgrown partner.

Nowaki had all day to sleep while I was gone. Couldn't he have at least waited to see me get home before he went back to bed?

Hiroki stamped into the bathroom. He thought he should take a hot shower but he didn't have the energy. Normally he would have forced himself to anyway, he smelled like an ashtray: those senior professors were like chimneys. Especially Miyagi when he was nervous.

Disgusting habit.

Usually he bathed, because though Nowaki would never say it, the scent of cigarettes bothered him. He was a doctor after all and cigarettes carried for him an odor of illness. Hiroki knew too that Nowaki associated smoke with Akhiko and Miyagi. It was a lingering reminder of the other men in Hiroki's life. Secretly it pleased Hiroki to wash the world outside their home off of him before presenting himself to Nowaki, making himself a blank canvas for Nowaki to mark as his own.

Tonight instead of bathing, however, Hiroki grabbed his pajamas from the hook on back of the bathroom door and proceeded to simply change into his long pajama pants. Given Nowaki's proclivities, when they did actually get to sleep together, this would normally be an act of futility: his bottoms never managing to stay on very long.

Well, that certainly won't be the case tonight, Hiroki promised himself. Not after Nowaki's been so inconsiderate.

He wrapped his arms around his lean torso and debated whether or not to put on a shirt.

It's fucking freezing.

Wickedly hoping that his chilled body would wake Nowaki up, Hiroki decided to just go to bed. Then his giant would find out, in his perturbed state, just how truly frigid he was feeling.

Walking across the hall, Hiroki opened the door to their bedroom. He stood there, his brow furrowing. With the light cast from the other room falling through the door he could see Nowaki's feet, the long legs barely contained by the length of the futon.

"Hiro-san, is that you?" came a sweet, sleep-rumpled voice. Nowaki reached up and turned on a small bedside lamp.

The scene before him was too much.

Hiroki strode to the edge of the bed and stood beside it towering, for once, over his inky-haired lover.

"Move over, dumb ass! What in the hell are you doing sleeping on my side of the bed?"

These harsh words, however, did not seem to affect Nowaki at all; in fact Hiroki was floored by his boyfriend's response.

"Of course, Hiro-san," Nowaki said gently as he slid over, holding the blankets up so that his shivering lover could join him. His tired eyes radiated love. "Coming home so late, with the weather as it is, I knew you would be extra cold tonight. So, I wanted to heat your side of the bed for you.

"Please get in before it fades."

Hiroki's body had suddenly grown several degrees warmer on its own accord, as the shame of his behavior and earlier harsh thoughts about his lovely Nowaki surged through him. In fact, his cheeks were now actually quite hot.

Slipping into the bed without uttering another word, Hiroki turned his back to Nowaki: he could not bear to face him the moment.

The warmth of the spot so recently vacated by Nowaki's body was delicious against his chilled skin. Pulling the soft sheets up around his shoulders, Hiroki tried to hide from his embarrassment.

He jumped to feel even more heat, as Nowakir tenderly pressed his own naked torso against him from behind. Wrapping his long arms around Hiroki, Nowaki covered his Hiro-san's frozen hands with large palms. He drew his long legs up under Hiroki and set cold feet on top of his own warm ones.

Hiroki was beside himself. He knew that if the situation had been reversed, he would have kicked Nowaki out of the bed! Or, at the very least, shouted at him for touching him with frigid body parts.

Instead, Nowaki draped a shaggy head over his shoulder and whispered in a voice like hot silk, "poor Hiro-san, always so cold." He sighed, nestled in, and pulled Hiroki tighter to him.

Hiroki was scorched by the truth of Nowaki's words.

Always so cold.

He was frozen… on every level: body, mind, heart.

Suddenly convicted, he felt a single hot tear slip unbidden from the corner of his eye. Hiroki turned his head and gently brushed his lips against his sweet lover's and watched as deep, blue eyes slowly opened in surprise. Within them, sparked by his kiss, Hiroki saw the rising inferno of the younger man's desire.

Nowaki, returned the kiss, hesitantly at first and then with mounting passion. For once, Hiroki did not protest, instead he opened himself to the heat of Nowaki's love, allowing himself to be melted completely.

THE END

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